


Upward Movement (Obsidian Heart Mix)

by Starcrossedsky



Series: Obsidian Heart Mix [4]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: M/M, backstory fic, teenage boys being teenage boys, the mildest of SB spoilers maybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 17:19:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11696298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starcrossedsky/pseuds/Starcrossedsky
Summary: Boy, I could do without a night of bad dreams, sad things (tell me what that means)Au ra puberty is a hell of a drug.(Or: Two boys and their master, a story of growing up dark knight.)





	Upward Movement (Obsidian Heart Mix)

**Author's Note:**

> I can officially say that this is part four of seven, now. Home stretch! [single person cheering in the background]
> 
> anyway uh if you object to teenage boys having non-explicit sex this fic probably isn't for you, sorry not sorry

_Night by night, inch by inch, you learn him._

_Which one? Well, that's the question now, isn't it?_

\----

The three of you go to Gridania because, in theory, that's a better place for children to grow up. Back then, you and Sidurgu were about matched, in size, in grieving silences.

He doesn't grab for Ser Ompagne's armor as much, anymore. He can hardly stand beside the man when he takes his greatsword to monsters on the road through the Shroud. Instead, he grabs for your hand, cloak falling loose from around his shoulders.

The first time, you want to shrink back, part of you still frightened of him - but you're scared, too. Unlike him, you've never been outside the city before, so _every_ sound is new and startling and, as far as your ten-year-old mind is concerned, potentially a monster.

Sidurgu's hands, you discover, are just a little warmer than yours, and back then, before you both got the calluses of weapons, just a bit softer. 

A week after you leave Ishgard, a harsh freeze chases you into the northern Shroud, and you say _to hell with it_ to yourself and climb under the grey cloak with him at night. The desire for body warmth against the cold trumps any personal feelings you might have about it.

In spite of Ser Ompagne's reassurances, you're still not entirely sure that he isn't a dragon. It's just that, now that you're outside of Ishgard, it's a bit harder to bring yourself to care.

\----

You spend most of two years in Gridania. You prefer the city itself, while Sidurgu favors the smaller settlements on the fringes. Eventually he tells you that he and his parents were travelling almost as long as he can remember; staying in one place is as strange to him as travelling is to you.

It is somewhere around there that you drop the latter half of his name and start just calling him _Sid_. It takes that long, for you to be really comfortable calling him a friend.

Really, it's all because of the Gridanians. Except at the Conjurer's Guild (which you frequent, having some paltry ability in their magics, towing Sid along with you), the two of you are regarded with suspicion. Ser Ompagne brought you here because no matter where you go, he can't keep an eye on you constantly; the Gridanians are as suspicious of outsiders as Ishgardians, but they're not likely to try to kill children in their sleep.

(As long as you make nice with the elementals, anyway, which isn't _that_ hard compared to making nice with the Temple Knights.)

Eventually, it's time to move on. You put up your cane; the conjurers want you to stay, think you could be good at it someday, talk about how you could save lives. You thank them, but shake your head.

There's only two lives that matter to you anymore, really, and you won't be able to help them from Gridania no matter how much you learn. Of course you're going to go with them.

\----

The next year is spent travelling all over. You see almost all of southern Eorzea at Sid's elbow, the two of you trailing after your master.

You only see someone else like Sid once - a merchant, in a market in Limsa Lominsa. She has _white_ scales, with a creamy sheen to them that makes you think of milk, and her horns are thin, almost delicate. At fourteen, Sid is already taller than her. _You're_ almost taller than her.

The two of you follow her around until she boards a ship in the evening, back to whatever distant land she came from. For a wild moment, you think of following.

Sid squeezes your hand, and you go back to your master, instead.

\----

Sid grows, and he grows, and he _grows_ , even your master unprepared for how exceedingly large he gets. It's not even just the sheer height, which soon enables him to rest his elbow on your shoulder, and then on your head, without too much difficulty. He's _thick_ , too, with wide shoulders and solid muscle.

His horns grow, too, no longer of a size that can be hidden under a hood, forget a helm. His hair grows long, wild, spiking in various directions with a shocking amount of volume. His eyes remain stunningly reflective in dim lighting, still that piercing blue-green. He grows scales in a few more places, frequently complaining about the itch.

The two of you don't hold hands when something scares you, anymore, but you still curl up against him at night to ward off the cold. It's a pretty good fit, with your head tucked up under his chin and his arms around you.

\----

You don't talk about it, don't make any kind of plan at all about it. But the two of you fit together, and it doesn't _really_ surprise you that while you're trying to work your words into order, Sid goes to your master and asks to follow the path.

You're right behind him, of course. You're both fifteen, more than old enough to make the decision - 

Ser Ompagne sighs at you. Down at you, in your case, but he can't really do that to Sid anymore.

"I didn't want that for you," the tired knight says, looking the two of you over. 

"It's what _we_ want," you say. You think of a girl with dreams of knighthood, and you say, "It's not like we expect it to be easy. Nothing's easy."

Sid says, "It's _right_. There aren't enough people who care about whether or not something's right."

Somehow, your fingers get tangled together, his sharp nails - almost claws - digging into the skin of your hand.

"...Very well," Ser Ompagne says, and even though you've already called him 'master' for years (because Sid had a father and you never wanted one), that was the moment that you truly began to learn.

\----

You return to Ishgard. The soul crystals of dark knights past are hidden there, in a place known only to those who walk the path - 

( _Except for yours, which never finds a rest there -_ )

And your master tells you about how, unlike most, dark knights do not dare pass their soul crystals down directly. The emotion in them, the lore, the memories all become too strong, after a lifetime of use, and need to take time to settle.

( _Again, except for yours. Ha, well, isn't that what brings us here today?_ )

Many others become lost and found, over the years, coming and going. Dark knights do not often live to old age, especially those that start upon the path as young as you. Your master, who came to it long after his youth had deserted him, is the oddity, not the rule.

( _You never expected to live a long life anyway. You don't want a long life, just one that **matters**._ )

You look beside you, at Sid's eyes reflecting the torchlight, and the two of you nod at the same time, and take the crystals in your hands.

( _It is shaped almost like a heart, and in your hand it burns. Remember? You thought at first that it was going to leave a mark, so hot the flame of the abyss._ )

\----

The Brume is like you never left. But you _did_ leave, and you came back, stronger, better, taller - 

Angrier. And not alone.

You kind of pity the fools who mistake your small stature for weakness, and not just because one of them straight up pisses himself when Sid just _looks_ in his direction, eyes reflecting under his hood. No, you could easily have handled them on your own.

Their reaction to Sid? That's just funny.

\----

The truly horrifying thing about Sid is that he isn't done growing.

"How," you say over dinner, spinning your spoon in your fingers idly after your second bowl of soup, "can you eat more than our master and I _combined_ , and _still_ be hungry?"

Sid shrugs at you and swallows back some of the broth from his fourth serving. "Shut up, Fray, I just am."

"It'd be cheaper to just feed you gil," you complain, before standing up to start on your dishes.

\----

There's hardly enough space in the Brume for the two of you to swing greatswords around, but that's fine. There's plenty of space in the various highlands of Coerthas, and plenty of monsters to wet your blades on. Sometimes, they're not even knights.

You and Sid work well together, and you work well in opposition, sparring with heavy swords crashing against each other. He's stronger than you, but you read him better (the fact that you can wear a helm and he can't helps), which results in an even match that keeps you on your toes. Afterwards, your conjury gets a workout on both your injuries; Sid, despite your best efforts, is still fairly hopeless at it.

Sometimes your master watches in approval; other times, he simply leaves you to it, to take care of justice in some other part of the highlands. As long as you're all back to the city by some appointed time, hours or days later, there's no reason to worry.

\----

Not long after you turn sixteen, you start finding _other_ reasons to be glad that your master leaves you alone for hours, sometimes days, at a time. Those reasons all tend to involve Sid - his scales, his hair, his hands, and especially his eyes all draw you in, until you're touching, chests pressed together, and he runs a hand along your jaw - 

_Really_ , being a dark knight is an emotionally charged profession at the best of times. In the hands of a pair of teenage boys, more comfortable with each other than they are with their own changing bodies, certain things are inevitable.

You find your abyss in him, and him in you, and you still work well both together and in opposition. You plumb that abyss as far down as it will go, running your hands over his scales, and lose yourself in him, in the dark, in blue-green in black sclera. Whatever parts of you don't come back up aren't worth keeping.

At the time, you were simply glad that your master wouldn't find anything strange about coming home to find the two of you bruised and asleep on each other. When you get a bit older, a bit wiser, you realize that he probably already knew.

\----

( _And to think, that's not even the heresy they arrest you for. Typical Temple Knights, wouldn't know fun if it hit them in the face._ )

\----

You grow, too, into something dark and wily and quick, small enough to slit in under people's guards. You grow nondescript, keep yourself hidden in dark armor when you're at 'work,' so that people don't recognize you without the black armor and massive companion. 

After all, no matter how much a dark knight is loathed by the world, he still needs to buy bread and shoes and sewing needles like anyone else. Bandages, too. Even with your amateur conjury, you buy lots of bandages.

(They've always been cheap in Ishgard, anyway.)

You learn to keep your barbed tongue when you show your face to the world, only letting it out from behind the safety of your helm, or in the safe space of the corner of the Brume that your master has established, that room you and Sid claim as your own. It becomes only more venomous from holding back.

Sid learns to manage his temper, too, but his anger was always brilliant hot sparks, destructive and not caring for what got between him and his target. He fights the same way, no concern for collateral damage, a black-armored storm with a sword at the front of it.

Usually, you're the more careful one. Usually, because when something truly gets to you, makes you drop down below the icy layer - 

You come around more than once, as though broken free from a trance, to broken bodies surrounding you and Sid staring like you've become the kind of monster you were scared that he was, when you were a kid. Sometimes, you think that you have, that there isn't any coming back from the abyss you've dropped yourself into - 

Unlike you, Sid isn't scared of monsters. He doesn't care how deep you fall - rather than trying to pull you up, he goes down right beside you.

For once, some bitter part of you observes, you're leading.

\----

( _It's no wonder that he never found the flame until you were **gone**. No matter how deep he went, he always had you shining ahead of him, guiding the way._

 _Deeper, deeper... Listen to my voice, Sid. Listen to our heartbeats._ )


End file.
